When I see a children’s hospital or St. Jude commercial on the TV, it brings tears to my eyes along with this thought: “But for the grace of God there go I.” There are so many of these needed charitable organizations, and each one seems to bring a tear to one’s eye, from seeing disabled soldiers to listening to a mother of four describe her life struggles after losing her husband in the Twin Towers tragedy. Unfortunately, those commercials only bring tears to our eyes, but seldom a penny from our pockets.

Americans form what is the richest country in the world. We share those riches with just about every country in the world through both our government and our individual donations. I am grateful to be an American and extremely proud that my country can afford to help the poor and needy throughout the world.

But, and yes there has to be a but, why do we have to double dip on the American people for charitable funds, especially for financial assistance to treat our American military wounded or worst yet, those killed protecting our way of life? The families of these wounded or killed veterans should not have to beg for help. That help should come from our government that made the ultimate decision to place our troops in harm’s way in the first place.

We, the American people, just went through one of the most contentious political battles ever seen in our history, where billions of dollars were spent by each party to gain political control of the executive and legislative branches of government. It is estimated that hundreds of millions more will be spent in Georgia’s senatorial runoff alone on January 5. This win by either political party will ensure control of the Senate.

Yes, control: That’s what it’s all about, politicians spending your hard-earned dollar wastefully so they can maintain control. What exactly does this control buy you, other than the right to say you’re on the winning side? Guess what? There is no winning side. We, the American people, are the losers. We stand divided as pawns in a political game of maintaining that control.

Do you think that those kids at St. Jude’s, or the soldier with missing limbs lost in a country whose name he can’t even pronounce, or the mother of four whose husband was lost somewhere on 9/11, really care who’s in control?

Take any of the aforementioned charitable causes and ask yourself, what would that organization do with $300 million? That’s the amount spent on the presidential campaign by one single politician in Florida to assure that his man won. These horrendously large amounts of money are being spent simply to maintain control of a government that is slowly becoming a forgotten Republic. Issues don’t seem to matter with these lifelong politicians.

Take for example, the four candidates running for U.S. Senate in the state of Georgia. No one has a clue as to what they stand for or believe in. They’re Republicans and Democrats who stand by their party and believe in their party’s philosophy of control.

People from Washington State to the tip of Florida to the Hawaiian Islands will all donate money to those campaigns; again I ask you for what?

They say money can’t buy everything, but it has proven over and over again to have the ability to buy control of our governing bodies.

These politicians we have chosen to follow, consist of our representatives and the media. Combined they have structured “The American People” into believing that there are two sides to an opinion and those sides must be separated as far apart as possible to maintain the divide— which is control.

It is mentally and physically impossible to create a partial divide; it must be all or nothing. What these two entities have done is to yank our republic out from under us and replace it with their form of government. They have left us with believing that candidates, our representatives, are the issue rather than the issues being the issue.

The issues are handled by the lobbyist who pays the politicians to bring the issue to light. The hell with candidates: issues matter; let us vote on issues, rather than party.